


Destined to Fall

by writingramblr



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Childhood Memories, Cousin Incest, F/M, Incest, rey is a skywalker here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 21:24:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5800672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingramblr/pseuds/writingramblr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben Solo and Rey Skywalker have known each other longer than a handful of days and a few scattered memories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Destined to Fall

**Author's Note:**

> THIS is my final reylo story, i wrote about 2 weeks back and only posted on tumblr. so here it is in all its incesty glory.
> 
> its pure cousin incest because fuck the haters, thats why.

When Ben Solo is ten years old, there is a little celebration for his new born cousin. Uncle Luke and Aunt Mara seem very happy, and he’s glad there will be more bright beacons in the Force for him to see. But he’s a little confused when the baby first takes a shine to him.

He holds it, and it burbles happily, reaching up for his nose, which he knows is a little oversized for his face, but Mom promises he’ll grow into it, and be as handsome as his Dad.

The baby grasps it and is smiling, so he lets it.

Later he remembers that it’s actually a girl. Reyna.

He thinks of her as Rey.

He starts training with Uncle Luke, when there’s free time, and when Aunt Mara has Rey, while Mom helps. He comes home every other day to find the house smelling of sweets, or fresh picked flowers, and Dad is proud of him.

Fast forward five years, and little Rey is a bumbling youngling who won’t leave him alone. She’s his shadow, and he lets her be it, when he’s not busy training.

Though her Force signature is strong, he wonders if she will be able to be trained, by her own father, or if he’ll ask the only other qualified Jedi in the galaxy to help.

His face forms a smile at the thought, and a small welling of pride blooms in his chest.

Until the dark presence at the edge of his mind bursts through into his consciousness, and the voice that follows, harsh and ragged and raspy, whispers one word.

_“Wasted.”_

There is so much potential in him, Ben knows it.

Luke Skywalker is holding him back, but is it for his own good or out of fear?

Ben isn’t sure.

*

Reyna, or Rey, as she lets Ben, her skinny, tall and dark haired cousin call her, is beginning to get a knawing sensation in her stomach every time she goes over to the Solo Organa home.

Something is very wrong with Ben. He frowns more than he smiles, and he brushes her off when she asks him about his training.

She’s only innocently curious, as she feels the Force dancing around her thoughts, and she twirls a finger, making the tree branches bend out of her way, she can tell that in a few years she’ll be able to train to be a Jedi too.

Hopefully.

Her father is training a small group of younglings, just a few years older than her, and Ben is leading the class, except where he’s not.

She’s heard her father and Han Solo talking, late at night, in hushed whispers behind closed doors. She knows eavesdropping is wrong, but she worries about Ben.

Aunt Leia says he’s started calling himself something else entirely, and Rey knows she would have been the first to know, if he hadn’t stopped speaking to her.

Six months pass in the blink of an eye and it’s her seventh birthday, when it all goes wrong.

The Force has been a steady presence in her mind, and while she’s preparing for breakfast, barely out of bed, she hears a scream.

It’s not a real sound, it’s a call out into the Force.

Death.

It chills her to the bone.

She’s running to her father’s bedchamber before she knows what else happens.

He’s gone.

Her mother is nowhere to be found, and the only place she can think of to go to next is the new Jedi Temple.

The training halls are empty, and haunting with their silence as Rey creeps slowly through them. She thinks of calling out to Ben, in her mind, and though she is untrained in anything, she manages to probe and find him. She thinks.

He has his face covered with a mask, and he’s clad all in black. Not Ben…is it?

She frowns at him in her mind’s eye, and asks him,

_“What is happening Ben?”_

“ **Hush child.”**

Comes the harsh reply, before the tepid connection is severed.

There is only her father now, the brightest beacon of light in the Force she’d ever known, since before she was born, maybe.

She moved quicker through the halls, breath caught in her throat, as a terror she’s never known grips her. The sight of a few scattered fallen and still bodies stops her short and her hand flies to her mouth.

Something is whitening out her vision, and she’s sure it’s not the Force.

“ _Rey, go back home, get your mother to the Falcon, and go with Han and Leia.”_

Her father’s voice breaks through the fog of fear, and she starts, realizing he’s telling her to flee, to run, and to leave without him!

She does not know if she has the strength to move her legs any further much less run.

Rey has never been more frightened in her life.

That’s when the tall imposing figure with the chrome and black mask rounds the corner, blade like caged fire in the shape of a cross extended towards her, and she screams aloud.

*

 _Rey_.

Sweet little unknowing Rey Skywalker.

Ben - No, Kylo Ren isn’t sure what to do with her. She is untrained, unknowing of the Force, yet could easily grow to be a great threat to his power, to his plan, and even as Snoke urges him to end it, to kill her now, while he has her in his grasp, he cannot.

Tears are streaking down her tanned cheeks, and her green eyes are wide with fear, even before her mouth drops as his ears are filled with the sound of her yells.

His hand lifts at once, silencing her, lest she alert her father, who he knows is rapidly approaching, as if he thinks he can stop him, along with his loyal Knights.

The best thing to do is to relieve her of the guilt, of the knowledge, and even if she doesn’t yet suspect, she soon will.

He has done his best to distance himself from her, as her Light is only distracting and strangely compelling, and it is the last thing he needs.

He steps closer, and he sees her flinching away, from the stranger that she thinks he is, for the moment. He revels in the anonymity that the mask grants him, and reaches out his hand, clad in soft leather, to touch her forehead, a spare moment of gentleness after the horrors he’s already committed.

She shivers against his gloved hand, and he feels the emotions she’s experiencing like they are his own for the split second it takes to enter her mind.

“Shhh. Don’t be afraid Rey. You will be safe. Just forget.”

He pulls the memories of their shared childhood, their times spent together, chasing or being chased by Chewie, warm family dinners with the entire Skywalker group, and most importantly, the moments when he began to grow distant.

She has no memory of Ben Solo by the time he lets her go, and with a wave of his hand, she falls unconscious, into his arms easily, so he lays her down upon the ground, ignoring the wrongness of her body still thrumming with so much Light and life among all the dead, and walks away.

Luke Skywalker has no hope of stopping him, but the fact that his daughter lies unconscious might just distract him enough that Kylo Ren won’t need to kill him too.

Snoke’s waves of pride emanating across the galaxy as Kylo steals a ship with his Knights isn’t quite enough to flush out the tiny voice inside his soul that tell him he’s just stepped off a cliff he can never scale back up again.

He knows it though.

All he can do is try to accept it.

*

Rey’s father did the unthinkable. When Luke discovered her, as she was, out cold, with a good chunk of her childhood simply…missing, he knew that something drastic had to be done, for her safety, and his own.

For Leia and Han as well.

So he took her to the far reaches of space, and left her with someone he thought he could trust. It wouldn’t be until nearly twenty years later, after Mara Jade had long died from a broken heart, and he’d felt his own scatter to the wind, that he would see his daughter again.

*

When Rey experienced the vision from touching Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber, many gaps inside her memory began to expand and fill, and the worst part of it all was remembering the dark shadow from her nightmares, and knowing he was real. Seeing him loom over her with that flash of red in hand and hooded figures behind him who outnumbered her a dozen to one was more than terrifying.

The man in the mask who’d destroyed the village barely a scant few miles from where she’d been on Jakku was someone she knew, she could sense in with the small Force knowledge she had.

It had grown stronger and stronger, the more time she’d spent in Han Solo’s presence, and the words he hadn’t said were far more significant than what he had.

She _knew_ him, and Chewie too.

The Wookie had barely kept himself from crying out when he’d heard her name.

The youngling he’d taken care of and watched over for many years, until never seeing her again, was all grown up, and had no idea who she was.

But the pieces were falling together now, and the pull she felt towards Han Solo was not accidental. He was like a second father to her, because he _had been_.

Now, she found herself running from yet another battle that the First Order had begun, the next spark struck to fan the flames of the all out war that was inevitable.

She just hoped the resistance would be strong enough to hold out.

As she pulled out the blaster Han Solo had given her, and took her first real shot, she marveled at how easy it was.

There was a whisper of a warning, from her tentative grasp on the Force, and when she turned around to find the real life personification of her nightmare approaching, her blood ran cold.

She fired.

Again.

And again.

He deflected each one like a meddlesome fly. That lightsaber, the one he used like an extension of his very being was so hauntingly familiar. Blood red, and jagged, like it was on the verge of imploding.

The crystal was unstable, her mind supplied suddenly.

His hand lifted, clad in black leather, and her arm dropped, her blaster facing the forest floor, useless. Her entire body was made immobile.

This was it. This was the end.

“You…you’re the scavenger who’s been protecting the droid.”

The voice beneath the mask was distorted, muffled and yet mechanical. It frightened her more. _Inhuman,_ her mind whispered.

She watched him move out of her line of sight, and he stepped up close to her, lifting the lightsaber until it hummed its deadly song right in her ear.

“ _Who are you?”_

He sounded curious, not angry, like she’d been expecting.

Her throat itched, and she found she could speak,

“I’m no one.”

It was practiced. The answer she always used when threatened, which wasn’t all too often, until the last few days.

Suddenly, the scarlet blade lowered, and his hand was on her cheek, leather cold yet smooth against her skin,

“You’ve seen the map.”

Surprise colored his voice, and she was struck by the thought that her mind was open, easy to access, without any sort of training, she had no way to keep him out.

Straining her arms, trying to just _move_ an inch, she found she could not.

He was probably amused by her efforts, but before he could speak again, a Storm trooper stepped into the clearing, informing him resistance fighters were growing to overwhelm them.

Rey managed to smile in defiance.

The masked man, well, he could only be Kylo Ren, told them it didn’t matter, they had what they needed.

She could not look at him, but the last thing she saw before blackness swallowed her was the beautiful expanse of the green forest.

*

His heart was racing.

His hands shook as he caught her. She was a soft weight in his arms, and he ran.

He could not get to the shuttle fast enough.

One look. That’s all it had taken.

A tiny peek inside the mind of the girl, the scavenger, _no one,_ she’d called herself.

No.

He gritted his teeth and clenched his hands into fists, sneaking glances over at her unconscious form as the ship began to return to the Star Destroyer.

A name came to his mind, unbidden. Another time, as if from another life, he could see in his mind’s eye, two children, one a toddler, with messy brown hair in three ponytails, the other with short shaggy black hair, skinny as a rail, eagerly giving chase to the youngling.

He shook his head.

He could not be distracted by the past.

But when it was laying only a handful of feet away, shimmering with potential in the Force, it was hard to ignore.

Finally, the ship landed, and he practically ran again to the interrogation room with her in his arms. He lifted her into the chair, securing the restraints with the Force, and then hung back, unsure whether he should leave, wait for her to wake, or simply bring her back to consciousness himself.

He decided on the latter. Kylo Ren never pretended to be patient.

He took a less threatening stance, crouching down in the corner of the room, and with a wave of his hand, she was stirring, shaking her head, and blinking her eyes.

The first thing she did was test the restraints and he smiled mildly at the image. She was very clever, and even if she hadn’t been who she was to him, he would have been quite taken with her.

The years had been kind to her, and now, without the heat of battle stealing his focus, with the quietness of the Force simply humming to him, he could appreciate her, even in the harsh lightening of the room.

She still wore her hair the same, but now with three buns, as it was surely longer. Freckles dotted the skin over her nose and cheeks, from many a day spent in the hot sun, and her green eyes had darkened to a sage color.

Still the same defiant brow, and lips that were neither thin nor full, merely the perfect shape to curl in a half smile, when she would imitate his f…

No.

That was a dangerous line of thought.

He was Kylo Ren.

Not who _he_ was.

Not that name.

“Where am I?”

The words were cutting, and if he’d been a weaker man, they might have bit at him, burrowed under his skin, and caused him to think she hated him.

Oh he knew she did.

She hated Kylo Ren.

“You’re my guest.”

He was trying to get her to relax, he knew that was why he’d slipped, and let what could have been called tenderness enter his voice. Luckily, with the mask, she would hear even flat tones.

“Where are the others? The ones I was fighting with?”

He stood at once, deeply and instantly insulted that was her next question.

She flinched away, imperceptively to anyone else but a Force sensitive being.

“You mean the _traitors, murderers and thieves_ you call friends? You’ll be relieved to hear I have no idea.”

His voice was bitter on the last term, and he couldn’t help it.

She considered what he said, and looked on the verge of another reply, before he caught a glimpse of himself in her mind, lying on the ground, bleeding out from a blaster wound.

A smile that nearly hurt twisted his mouth as he took a step closer to her,

“You want me dead.”

She lifted her chin, eyes flashing with fire, righteous indignation,

“That happens when you’re being hunted by a creature in a mask.”

Kylo Ren sensed the anger in her words, and there was only one thing for it. The final card. His ace in the hole. Not a threat, not a weapon, but a test. He reached up, undid the workings of his mask, and pulled it off, setting it aside upon the nearest ledge.

He took a cautious breath of unfiltered air, and locked his gaze on hers. Her jaw dropped, and her brows met briefly before she began to blink, disbelief coloring her features.

“You…I know you…somehow…”

She trailed off, and he tightened his jaw, and shrugged,

“Just as I know you… Rey. I’m surprised your Force heightened senses didn’t pick up on things sooner.”

She was fighting to breathe steadily, he could see her chest rising and falling rapidly, and despite himself, the sight was mildly distracting.

“I knew there was something when I held Luke’s lightsaber… but I couldn’t be sure…”

He winced at the name from their past, and she saw it, he knew.

“How do I know you?”

Her voice was a hushed whisper, and it was as if she already had the answer, but was afraid to admit it.

“Kylo Ren is only the name I took upon myself. I used to be known by another, _cousin.”_ It was as close as he dared go, not willing to let his old name leave his throat.

It would be enough to choke him.

*

The mask had come off to reveal a face, not scarred or hideous as she’d imagined, but almost handsome, in a way, with too pointed of a nose, large ears not quite hidden beneath long dark waves, and eyes that shined with emotion. No wonder he wore it, his face was a dead giveaway to what he was thinking, whether she could read his mind or not. Not that she could. Not for lack of trying.

But the face, _that face_ struck a chord within her, stirred a faint string of a memory, and drew a wisp of warmth inside her chest.

He said the word and she felt her heart skip a beat.

“What?”

The word stuck in her throat, and she saw his long face twitch with amusement, and that made her blood instantly turn to fire in her veins. How dare he laugh at her shock!

“You are Reyna Skywalker. You are Luke’s daughter, just as I am Leia’s son. Your mind is fuzzy, trying to pull together the truth. You do know. I took it away, but your mind is strong, it is repairing itself. I had once thought it would be easier if you forgot.”

Rey felt heat flood her cheeks, and she looked away from him.

He’d robbed her of her memories, so many years ago, and then she’d been abandoned on a world where she knew, no one. So she’d become no one.

Luke Skywalker was her father? Who was her mother? Why had they left her alone on Jakku?

When she found him, with her… aunt’s help, she would be asking him many a question.

Instantly she was jolted back to the present, when he reached for her, gloved hand raised, prepared to invade her mind again.

“You’ve seen the map. You know where _he_ is. Now you’re going to give it to me.”

She locked eyes with him, saw his determination, his anger, and it mirrored her own.

But she also remembered the way he’d watched her, before the mask had come off. Studying her, looking for…what?

If he was so far gone into the Dark side, what could she do? Could she appeal to his heart? If he had one. They had grown up together, and though she had only hazy half formed images, she remembered the fondness, the laughter, the _joy_ there had been.

Her heart suddenly ached, wondering if both of them had truly been without that for the last two decades.

She felt the probe of his mind pressing into, against her own, and she let him, as she brought those happy flashes of what had been memories to the front of her mind.

His hand faltered, and after a few moments, he faltered, staggering backwards, a gleam in his eyes that was not malice or anger, but… tears?

“Where did you get that?”

His voice was choked with emotion, and it melted her heart. There was still Light in him! It was a pure and instant realization.

“That was us… once. It could be again.”

She tried, desperation tinting her voice slightly.

He blinked rapidly, trying to rid himself of the tears, fighting the reaction to the memories.

Rey wished that her arms could be free, so she could reach for him. Even so, her fingers twitched to hold his own.

“Don’t be afraid…I feel it too.”

She tried again.

He shook his head, one hand raking through his hair roughly, as if the pain would pull him back from the Light that threatened him.

“No. No, it can’t be. I need that map. I have to have it.”

His voice nearly broke on the last sentence.

“Why?”

His eyes snapped to hers, and she was struck by the sudden fear in the darkness of them,

“My master needs it. If I fail…”

He trailed off, and she was left with a flash of images, projected into her mind from him, whether unconscious or on purpose.

She thought she might be sick from the pain that she felt, even just as echoes in the Force.

“You’ll never be as dark as Darth Vader…you know it’s not too late, not too late to turn back.”

It was so very risky, appealing to him like this, but she couldn’t help it.

She saw his jaw tighten, and he shook his head, dark hair falling over his forehead, shrouding his eyes from her once more.

“No. I will have that map. I can take whatever I want. I _will._ ”

She wanted to ask him who he thought he was convincing, himself or her, but she remained silent.

There was a stirring inside her, and when he reached out again, trying to seek out what he thought he needed from her mind, he met only a blank wall.

Slowly, carefully, she tested her bonds again. Metal began to flex and bend, and while he was frowning in confusion, searching for an opening, she was working her hands free.

In seconds, Rey was able to slap his hand away, and snag his lightsaber from his belt, forcing him back as she flicked it on.

She might not have been an expert with the Force or the weapon, but she wasn’t about to waste her advantage.

His eyes were wide with shock, and he stepped back from her with several long strides.

“How did you do that?”

He sounded surprised, but also mildly impressed.

Her stomach clenched with something inscrutable, like pride, and she smiled tightly,

“I don’t know. But you will not raise an alarm, and you will help me to the hanger bay, and give me a ship.”

Her voice was laced with the influencing power of the Force, though she didn’t know it. However, in that moment, he appeared to be prepared to do whatever she asked.

He was looking at her with pure awe, and even as her hands shook on the hilt of his unstable lightsaber, she felt more powerful than she had in all her life.

“Yes. I will.”

*

Kylo wasn’t sure what had happened, but it seemed little Rey had grown up, and managed to far outstrip his influence with the Force, simply tapping into the pure and raw power that welled inside her and radiated from her.

He could only watch as she strode down the hall, leading the way somewhat, guided by what he had to guess was the Light, his lightsaber clutched in her fist, off, but prepared to be ignited at any given moment.

“Do you have tie-fighters…”

She trailed off, spotting the exact ship, and he couldn’t fight the grin that split his face,

“Of course. Can you fly one?”

She suddenly looked nervous,

“Probably.”

She glanced at him, as if expecting protest, and he shrugged,

“Don’t worry. I’ve given up the idea of trying to argue with you.”

Making the Storm troopers ignore then as they made their way to a ship was easy. Keeping them distracted while they stole said ship would be more difficult.

Then there was the matter of his Dark master.

Kylo winced.

Snoke was an ever present shadow in his mind, and it was nearly impossible to keep him out indefinitely. Defying his orders to capture the droid and instead simply bringing Rey back with him had been the first time he’d ever done anything like that.

He was loathe to think it, but he might need to ask for help from Skywalker. If Rey would indeed take him there.

“You’re really doing this? Coming with me? Abandoning the First Order?”

She stopped short, watching him carefully, and he flashed through all he’d glimpsed in her mind before. The pain of his punishment for leaving was far outweighed by the possible joy he could endure by returning home. Though he was still afraid to allow himself to be thought of as… _Ben,_ he’d never want anything as much as he wanted to leave with her.

“Yes.”

She held out her hand suddenly, and he stared at it for a long moment.

“Take it.”

She pressed, and he did, feeling a sudden wash of warmth flow through him at the renewed connection. Not mental, but physical.

This was bad for Kylo Ren, but there was hope for Ben Solo.

***

Once the ship was past all First Order patrols, and they were safely on their way to the Illenium system, Rey turned to look at Kylo…well, she wasn’t sure what to call him.

“Ben?”

She asked cautiously, and he lifted his head to look up at her, from where he’d been resting it in his hands, perhaps doing his best to come to terms with what he was really doing.

“I…haven’t been called that in so long.”

“What do you think your family will say?”

He moved swiftly, standing in a sudden motion that made her almost dizzy as he came to her side, and he was so much taller she had to look up slightly to meet his gaze.

“I don’t know.”

His hand found hers in an instant, and she swore she could feel him shaking.

Their mental connection was tentative, but she could practically taste the fear and apprehension seeping from him.

“It’ll be okay.”

“How do you know?”

His voice dropped to a raspy whisper, and his eyes were glittering with tears again. She squeezed his hand,

“Your mother and father both love you very much. They will forgive you.”

He grimaced,

“But can Luke?”

She looked away from him, unable to answer. She hadn’t even tried to think about that. He was off, no one knew where, and probably thought he’d never see her or Ben again.

“Rey…forgive me, but could you…”

He trailed off, and she tugged his hand gently, hoping to encourage him to continue, instead, he dropped her hand only to pull her into his arms, so long they could nearly reach around her back to himself, and her breath was forced from her lungs.

“Oof.”

He was tucking his chin into the space between her neck and shoulder, and she could feel dampness through her shirt.

“I’m so sorry for everything.”

He was shaking now, and she felt her knees weakening from lack of air, so she began to fall.

He went with her, bringing them both to the ground, and he was holding her up, releasing her slightly so she could inhale sharply.

“Sorry for that too.”

He looked down at her with a cross between a smile and a laugh on his face, and she was struck again by how handsome he’d become.

As a youth, she’d barely noticed his changing appearance, he’d had nearly a decade on her anyway. The fact was, she’d never thought of anyone as fondly as she had him.

“Rey…”

Her name seemed to catch in his throat, and as he stared down at her, two tears dropped from his eyes onto his cheeks, perfect trails reflecting the cabin lights above them.

Her eyes dropped to his lips for a heartbeats worth, and she gulped.

She couldn’t…she shouldn’t…but she wanted nothing more than for him to…

*

Ben felt her still in his arms, and he watched her green gaze fall to his mouth, and he didn’t need to read her mind to know what she was thinking. Her beauty was distracting, and more than that, he was overwhelmed by the fact she was the one person in the universe who had given him the chance, _a_ chance for any sort of salvation, and she could only be called an angel who’d swept back into his life at the perfect moment.

He was overwhelmed with his emotions for her and about her, and he did the unthinkable. He leaned in, and closed the gap between them, pressing his lips to hers, only gasping in relief when she kissed him back, her arms lifting to wrap around his shoulders, pulling him flush to her, and tasting her breath when her lips parted, allowing his tongue entrance to her sweet mouth.

Pure sin, that’s how it felt.

She was trembling against him, and he knew he wasn’t as steady on his knees as he should have been.

However, falling backwards with her collapsing on top of him hadn’t been part of the plan, he was totally okay with it after the fact. Her body was a warm weight on his chest, and as she looked down at him, he no longer felt nearly as scared about returning home.

Not when he had her by his side.

He brought a hand up to stroke her forehead, and stray brown waves escaping her triple buns,

“Thank you.”

She smiled gently, and her brows met slightly,

“What for?”

He licked his lips, and shrugged,

“Everything.”

*

**End**

**Author's Note:**

> going out with a bang if i may say so. but i kept it clean for ya'll.


End file.
